CARIBOU (AP) – A Masardis man was not criminally responsible for the shooting and bludgeoning death of his father because he suffers from mental illness, a judge ruled.

Michael MacDonald, 27, was psychotic and lacked the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct when he killed his father, Michael D. MacDonald, in the father’s Masardis home on April 21, 2004, Aroostook County Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter ruled Tuesday.

The evidence showed without a doubt that MacDonald killed his father, Hunter said.

Prosecutors said he shot his father in the face with a 20-gauge shotgun, beat him with the butt of his gun and then stabbed him more than a dozen times.

But MacDonald suffered from schizoaffective disorder, paranoia and hallucinations, and heard voices telling him he must kill his father, Hunter said. The son believed his father molested him as a child, Hunter said, and that his father rejected him by telling him he had to move out of his house just days before the killing.

“He has proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he lacked a substantial part of appreciating the wrongdoing,” he said.

MacDonald was expected to be taken to Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, where he will receive treatment for his mental illness.

AP-ES-11-09-05 0907EST